Progress on the Sandusky Bay Pathway

SANDUSKY — Sandusky officials recently kicked their efforts into high gear as they continue developing the city's only recognized bicycle path. Most notably, they made visual improvements to better establish the Sandusky Bay Pathway. On East Water Street leading into Shoreline Drive, officials placed bright green and blue lines on the pavement to more clearly delineate a protected recreational route. Aaron Klein, the city's public works director, provided an in-depth explanation about this and other similar initiatives. • Why the striping: "The goal of the new striping is to create a unified, separated path that would help with the safety of all cyclists between old City Hall (on Meigs Street) and AMVETS Hall (on Putnam Street)." • What's the need: "The current on-street pathway on Water Street has a narrow eastbound bike lane along the southern curb and a narrow westbound bike lane along the northern curb between Franklin and Meigs streets. The driving lanes are particularly wide, and once Shoreline Drive is complete, this would be the only section between old City Hall and AMVETS Hall that would be on-street. Crossing that intersection going eastbound could be extremely dangerous, and we'd like to get ahead of a potential conflict." • How will this happen: "We would eliminate the existing separated, narrow, on-street lanes and provide a 10-foot path for two-way cycling along the north curb lane. We'd then create a striped buffer between the driving lane and the bike lane with visible delineator posts. This would push the centerline, the double yellow lines, south. When done, cyclists can continue eastbound on the Sandusky Bay Pathway without having to cross the intersection at Water and Franklin, greatly reducing the potential conflict between pedestrians, vehicles and cyclists." • When will this happen: "The re-striping being done is a short-term, cost-effective solution that should bridge the gap until the permanent solution can be implemented in the future." What is the Sandusky Bay Pathway? By 2029, officials ideally want to create an uninterrupted 13-mile-long waterfront route, connecting Sandusky's west side to its east end, linking parks, piers, restaurants, hotels, businesses, nature spaces and more. The multimodal trail would lead into what's called The Landing, a proposed nature space behind Sports Force Parks at Cedar Point Sports Center. Today it's an incomplete 2-mile-long network mostly going along the waterfront. At a cost of $24 million, when including a proposed nature area called The Landing by Sports Force Parks, the Sandusky Bay Pathway depends on foundation gifts, grants and land-use agreements in hopes of fulfilling these ambitious conceptions. Once officials receive money to improve a certain area, they'll embark on that portion. In other words, they'll incrementally develop the pathway as funding becomes available. For instance, officials set aside some money in Shoreline Drive's ongoing $10 million transformation so they could develop the pathway along there. It's there where officials want to establish "Mile Marker Zero," or the pathway's home base. Located behind Schade-Mylander Plaza, crews recently installed lettering, which spells this out and lets people know they've arrived. Around the marker, this past week, crews installed light pole banners which read "Sandusky Bay Pathway" and "Wightman-Wieber Foundation." Foundation representatives previously gifted the city with $500,000 to establish the pathway on Shoreline Drive.